The curse of Tartarus
by Lauretania
Summary: When was the last time you read about the olympians discussing Tartarus? What is describing it simply curses you? And what happens when Nico tells Will of his time there? Will falls into deep turmoil, and it is up to Nico to save him.


**A/N: This starts after the part of the book where Nico is told to spend some time with Will in the infirmary remember? I hope so. This was originally a collab story but since then I've lost all contact with the other writer, so if they should come across this and still want to work with me then I'd really really like that. Please tell me what you all think of this as I've never written a Solangelo only story, and this might not get updated very often; sorry :/**

 **As always, please read, review, enjoy and fangirl on me! Well not on me but... You know what I mean, I hope to see you all in the comments? Maybe? Nevermind.**

 **Will POV**

"Will really I'm fine I'm not sure this is necessary! Will! Will? Are you even listening to me?" Shouted Nico di Angelo at the head of the Apollo cabin. Will Solace, blonde hair, blue eyes sparkling, looked at the demigod he was dragging behind him with a look he hoped that said 'You're adorable but you're not getting out of this one'. Nico struggled against him, but being weakened by blood loss and at the disadvantage of being a whole lot smaller than the blonde-haired son of Apollo, Will had absolutely no trouble dragging him the remaining space to the infirmary.

When Nico refused to lie down on the bed in the furthest corner, Will literally grinned in delight. Nico looked downright alarmed.

"Will? Why are you looking at me like-" Nico had no time to finish his sentence as in a whirl of gold and black Will reached down, and all but threw the pale demigod onto the bed. Nico shouted profanity at him the whole way;

"WILL WHAT IN THE NAME OF HADES ARE YOU DOING?! PUT ME DOWN YOU- AH!" And that was when Nico's back collided with the uncomfortable fabric of the mattress. Will smirked from above him while Nico just scowled. Will was very glad at that moment that looks couldn't kill, else he'd be long dead; eviscerated where he stood.

"You did say to put you down, death boy." He pointed out, the smirk not leaving his face while Nico just glared at him.

"I didn't mean like that!" Nico protested, "And don't call me death boy." He added, pouting slightly and sulking. It was weird to think that Nico was technically over eighty, personalities wise he really could be a child sometimes.

"Oh shush it was a necessary evil." Said Will, waving his hand and brushing it off like it was no big deal. He also couldn't resist the opportunity to roll his eyes at the son of Hades, who was clearly festering with cold anger. The thing with Nico's anger was it was pretty temperamental, Will had been warned so. Sometimes it was hot and it owned him, but today it appeared, Nico's anger was cold, and he used it... On Will it seemed.

"Necessary?" Nico repeated incredulously.

He didn't seem to have anything else to say, so Will ignored him, instead tending to the first wound on his arm. Nico didn't even wince as he started tending to it.

Everything was very quiet after that, and Will could see Nico forgetting about his previous anger, watching Will's careful delicate hand movements on his arm.

In silence, Will poured some alcohol onto a medicinal tissue, preparing to disinfect Nico's arm before stitches- he didn't like to ask his father for help on something so trivial.

"This'll hurt." Will warned, but when the alcohol touched Nico's arm, Nico didn't even flinch. Will frowned, he had expected _some_ sort of reaction, even if Nico _was_ the ghost king.

"Didn't that hurt?" He asked.

Nico moved his head from side to side, not shaking his head no, but sort of thinking about it for a little while.

"Yes," He allowed, "But I've been through a hell of a lot worse."

Will grinned.

"Literally." Will added.

Nico said nothing. He looked very far away.

Will immediately felt like he'd put his foot in it. Tartarus was something that you didn't talk about. In fact, now that he thought about it, neither Percy nor Annabeth had talked about it either, and they were quite open people...

"I'm sorry I shouldn't have mentioned it." Will said hurriedly, feeling guilty, embarrassed and awkward all at the same time, which was quite new to him, or rather it happened quite rarely. Though, there had been that time where he'd broken the clasp on that girl's dress...

He shuddered.

"No it's fine." Nico mumbled.

Will very much doubted that it was fine. Scanning Nico with his eyes, he realised that a wound under his shirt was bleeding quite profusely.

Rookie mistake. Will never makes stupid mistakes. Stupid, stupid.

"Can you take off your shirt please Nico?"

After a whole lot of banter, arguing, curses, and literally peeling it off Nico because it was sticky with blood, they finally took it off.

This time Will didn't really have a choice about asking his father for help. If he didn't do this as quickly as possible, it could end badly.

He hummed the hymn to himself softly, keeping one hand over the skin, watching as it knitted back together slowly. Nico gasped. Will drew back his hand immediately.

"Sorry-sorry-sorry-sorry-what-did-I-do?-Did-I-do-something-wrong-oh-gods-what-hurts?" Will said so quickly it came out in on breath- just streams and streams of worry. Nico just stared at his hand, a ghost of a smile on his lips.

"Nothing. Nothing Will, I'm fine. More than fine, actually, it's just..."

He paused, as if he were struggling to find the right words to say, or maybe he was afraid of what the outcome would be if he said them.

"What?" Asked Will, prompting him.

"What you can do, it's incredible. I didn't... I didn't really realise until now. It's amazing Will." Nico said, all the while keeping his eyes firmly glued to the ground.

"You must have seen me do this before." Will protested, trying not to let his face heat up with embarrassment. Then he and Nico would have been the exact same shade of red in their cheeks.

"Actually, I was away quite a lot before this whole war with Gaia started, and even during it, I-I spent most of my time in T-Tartarus."

Will probably would have wanted to hug Nico in that moment but instead his brain was going something like this:

 _He stuttered._

 _He told me about Tartarus-not much, but a little._

 _Nico Di Angelo stuttered_.

The _hell._

"Will?" Nico asked, looking up at Will through shy eyelashes.

 _Adorable._ Will noted.

"Yes, sorry what?"

"You spaced out a little. I was starting to wonder if the last of your brain cells had finally fallen out of your head." He said, that smirk back on his face, no matter how hard he was clearly trying to hide it.

"No, no they're all intact thank you very much." He said, returning back to his work on Nico's wound, humming softly to himself, a hand over Nico's stomach.

Too small, too skinny. He thought to himself, trying not to frown as he documented it. Strictly professional of course.

Once the hymn was over, and Nico's skin almost fully knitted together again, Will put the last touches on the healing process, bandages disinfectant, all that jazz.

"Will you tell me about it?" Will asked quietly. Nico looked up at him, head slightly to the side, a puzzled expression written across his face.

"Tell you about what?" Nico asked.

"Tartarus." He whispered. As if almost scared to say the name. A thunderclap followed the whisper, and both boys flinched.

Nico froze.

"Please." Will begged.

As stupid as it sounded Will wanted to be special, to be that one person in Nico's life who knew his deepest (quite literally), darkest (literally again) secrets.

He wanted to be important to Nico. Because Nico had always felt different, interesting, special to Will, in a way no one else had. Maybe not romantically, but certainly, well, platonically.

NIco cleared his throat slightly, shaking his head as if too clear it as he did so.

"Alright. What do you want to know?" The son of hades asked warily.

Will grinned.

"Really?! Well anything! Anything at all!" Will said excitedly, leaning forward to listen intently while once again wrapping the bandage across Nico's torso.

"Well... It's dark, and I know you'd expect it to be festering hot, but it's not, at least not all the time. I read somewhere that hell is cold, and some parts of it are. It's as wide and as expansive and varied as our own world. In a way, it's hellishly beautiful. But it was terrifying. At least Percy and Annabeth had each other, sometimes when I felt like I couldn't go on, the waters of the rivers of hell would make my brain start to hallucinate... Sometimes Percy would die, or... Or I'd see myself killing Bianca... or Hazel... Once I... I saw that time when you healed Annabeth, when you saved her life and I begged you I begged you Will to let her die!"

"Nico. It's alright." He said, Nico's confession making his head spin. He felt suddenly breathless, as if he needed to catch a sudden breath in a wind.

"No it's not Will. I'm sorry... I shouldn't have told you that. I thought I could handle it." Nico muttered, seeming frustrated with himself.

But Will couldn't hear him. All he could hear was the ringing in his own ears, and a strange laughter ringing above that. The room was spinning. Now that was annoying, when had it started doing that?

He needed to get out, he felt imprisoned, trapped, like the information Nico had given him was too big for him to compute, to understand, his brain was hot and cold at the same time, the images Nico had sparked within him, coming to life in his imagination.

Fresh air. He needed fresh air.

"Will!" Nico shouted at him.

The son of Apollo couldn't have heard the black haired boys cries, and even if he had, they wouldn't have stopped him from collapsing into an unconscious, tanned heap on the floor.


End file.
